A World’ of hurt

Friday

Everything’s bigger in "Jurassic World," the reboot of the movie trilogy that began with 1993’s amazing "Jurassic Park" and delivered progressively worse films until 2001’s unfortunate "Jurassic Park III."

The park is bigger. The genetically modified dinosaurs are bigger. And the inevitable blockbuster’s problems and disappointments are bigger, too.

You’d expect a lot more originality, entertainment and wow factor from a concept that’s been batted around for almost 15 years, but "Jurassic World" instead delivers a rehash of plot points done much better in the original film as well as a clunky, predictable script with excruciatingly poor dialogue and plotting choices.

The film picks up 22 years after the disastrous events that destroyed the original cloned-dinosaur theme park. Jurassic World has become a highly successful tourist destination (built on the same island as the original) with hundreds of thousands of visitors, Imax theaters and attractions sponsored by huge companies including Samsung. There’s even a marine show featuring a gigantic mosasaur that leaps from the water to feed just like Shamu does at SeaWorld.

But, in a plot point that (in a much better film) could serve as an allegorical condemnation of moviegoers’ self-destructive thirst for blockbuster spectacle, "regular" dinosaurs are no longer good enough. Visitors demand more terrifying creatures and bigger thrills.

So, the park’s scientists kick their genetic tricks into high gear, producing a T. rex hybrid they call Indominus rex that is super violent (it’s devoured its sibling), super big and super smart: Not only does the color-changing beast remove a tracking device embedded beneath its skin but, figuring out that it can also be tracked by its heat signature, also finds a way around that.

I guess there are only so many plots that can take place on this island, and that number seems to be one: GMO monsters get loose, people get eaten, GMO monsters must be stopped.

"Jurassic World" adds very few new elements and takes away a couple of others. While Chris Pratt’s trainer character, Owen, hasn’t exactly taught the park’s vicious and cunning velociraptors to fetch the newspaper, he has developed a relationship with them and a mutual respect that comes in handy late in the film when he accompanies them on motorcycle in a hunt for Indominus (well, until nature takes over and it doesn’t).

And this time the bad guys are — wait for it — military types who want to weaponize the raptors (fair warning: I’m guessing that’s where further sequels are headed).

Sadly missing is any strong female character like Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler from the original. Until the dino poop finally hits the fan, Bryce Dallas Howard’s park operations manager Claire Dearing might as well be a cartoon — and a stereotypically uptight and single-minded, corporate, all-business cartoon, at that. Her sudden transformation to empathetic, butt-kicking protector is unconvincing and kind of insulting.

Maybe she’s doing the best she can with the material; she and Pratt have to deliver the most egregious dialogue in the most ridiculous scenes. Stopping to kiss and exchange allegedly witty banter while an enormous flock of pterodactyls is picking up and carrying away scores of screaming, terrified park guests — yes, actually picking them up and flying off with them — isn’t going to get you good notes on Yelp.

And I know I’m complaining about a dinosaur movie, but the ending is beyond ridiculous.

The film doesn’t even look that good. The sweeping park vistas are fine, but the 3D again makes everything murky and is visually unpleasing; it looks like an animated View-Master reel. All of this and a spectacularly unfunny cameo by Jimmy Fallon, too.